Every IT shop has its own way of doing things, but one thread ties them together: They all feel as though they have more work to do than can possibly be accomplished in the allotted time. Experts seem to think the economy is thawing out a bit, and some IT departments are starting to increase headcount, but in most cases staffing levels are just now starting to reach levels they should have hit years ago, falling short of current needs.

A good chunk of what I write about here on InfoWorld are infrastructure management tasks that I consistently see left behind in the wreckage of ambitious application rollout schedules. Though implementation timetables may be met, the price of skimping on good, old-fashioned infrastructure management and planning often gets paid later -- in the form of infrastructure instability, avoidable human error, and unnecessary trips to the corner office for capital or contract labor.

If you're responsible for enterprise IT infrastructure, take a look at this list and see how you stack up. If you're on top of everything, count yourself extremely lucky, but if you aren't, don't feel too bad. You're in good company.

PlanningAnyone who must submit a budget for the next fiscal year has to do at least some kind of technology planning. You can't have any idea how much capital to ask for if you have no idea what you will need to buy. But how often is your budgeting accurate? Do you know what your primary storage infrastructure will look like in two years? Three? Do you know when your backup infrastructure may need more resources? How about when you'll need to expand your virtualization cluster? Have you recently bought a piece of hardware or software you had to replace before you thought you'd need to replace it?